August 21, 2008

Let's start with the video, in which Obama gets mad, calls people liars, and insists that this is the kind of politics we need to get beyond:

Now, I think his anger is not helpful to his case. He's been asked a civil question by Rick Warren — this is just after the Saddleback Forum — and has an opportunity to reach the very people who are being stirred up by those who are going around saying he voted in favor of infanticide. He should have explained clearly why the Born Alive Infant Protection Act was not what his opponents say it was. I can understand why he's angry at those who present it in a form that makes him look monstrous, but the only workable remedy is to convince us to believe his interpretation of the law — and at least to teach us exactly what it was. He was a law professor. He should be able to bring us along so we can all understand.

In this video clip, all he does is vouch for his own interpretation and demand that we accept it. This is like the way he insists that we not "question his patriotism" when what we're doing — some of us — is trying to learn about and process some things we have questions about. It's delusional to think that millions of people will obey a command to put this behind us. We want to know the details of his relationship with former terrorist Bill Ayers. We want to know the details of the text of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act and the politics that surrounded it. The campaign season, for many Americans, is just getting started. It won't do to get pissed off and say that you've already explained this and we need to move on. Move on to what? These are the questions that concern us! And you won't deign to answer.

Obama supporters like to label John McCain McSame, but right now, it's Obama who is reminding me of George Bush. George Bush's greatest failing was his refusal or inability to explain why his judgment was sound and to continually persuade us that the course he had chosen was best. He seemed sure he was right and a little annoyed that we didn't understand it yet. Couldn't we just trust him and stop all this needless questioning? I'm thinking: not "McSame," Obushma.

***

I went looking for an accurate explanation of Obama's position on the Born Alive law. There's nothing on abortion on the much-touted "Fight the Smears" page of his website. Starting at the front page, I find the "issues" drop-down menu and go to "Women for Obama Issues" to find his material on abortion. There is a brief note of his support for abortion rights. The only outreach to abortion opponents is the line: "Barack Obama understands that abortion is a divisive issue, and respects those who disagree with him."

Google "Born Alive Infant Protection Act," and you mainly get links to the kinds of writings that Obama is angry about. This isn't surprising since his supporters are not so likely to use the term Born Alive Infant Protection Act when they write about it. Yet this is the natural search term to use if you want to learn more, and it's the search term that people he needs to persuade will use.

Here's a recent news article from the Catholic News Agency that, I think a lot of pro-lifers would find and read with trust:

Sen. Barack Obama has repeatedly insisted that he opposed the passage of an Illinois law that would protect infants who survive an abortion on the grounds that it lacked a “neutrality clause.” However, Obama’s explanation was undermined when the National Right to Life Committee revealed “smoking gun” evidence showing that a neutrality clause had in fact been added to the Illinois bill by the same Obama-chaired state Senate committee which quickly voted down the amended bill.

National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) spokesman Douglas Johnson summarized the revelations, saying:

“Newly obtained documents prove that in 2003, Barack Obama, as chairman of an Illinois state Senate committee, voted down a bill to protect live-born survivors of abortion -- even after the panel had amended the bill to contain verbatim language, copied from a federal bill passed by Congress without objection in 2002, explicitly foreclosing any impact on abortion.

“Obama's legislative actions in 2003 -- denying effective protection even to babies born alive during abortions -- were contrary to the position taken on the same language by even the most liberal members of Congress. The bill Obama killed was virtually identical to the federal bill that even NARAL ultimately did not oppose.”

The federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (BAIPA) was first introduced into Congress in 2000. A two-paragraph bill, it was intended to clarify that any baby who is entirely expelled from his or her mother and shows any signs of life is to be regarded as a legal person for all purposes of federal law, whether or not the baby was born during an attempted abortion.

A “neutrality clause” was added to state explicitly that the bill expressed no judgment about the legal status of a human being prior to birth.

“Nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being ‘born alive’ as defined in this section,” it read.

The bill passed Congress in 2002 without any dissenting votes and was enacted in August of that year.

As a member of the Illinois State Senate, Barack Obama opposed a state version of BAIPA in three successive regular legislative sessions. Even after the pro-abortion group NARAL withdrew its opposition, Obama reportedly continued to oppose the bill, which did not pass the Illinois Senate until 2005, after Obama had left that legislative body.

During his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign, Obama’s Republican opponent charged Obama with supporting “infanticide” for opposing the bill, which charge Obama countered by claiming the proposed Illinois law substantially differed from the federal version of BAIPA.

According to an October 4, 2004 article in the Chicago Tribune, “Obama said that had he been in the U.S. Senate two years ago, he would have voted for the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, even though he voted against a state version of the proposal. The federal version was approved; the state version was not. …The difference between the state and federal versions, Obama explained, was that the state measure lacked the federal language clarifying that the act would not be used to undermine Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court opinion that legalized abortion.”

However, the NRLC claims that newly obtained documents “demonstrate conclusively” that Obama’s defense is based on a “brazen factual misrepresentation.”

"Brazen factual misrepresentation" is a polite way to say lying. Barack Obama's answer is no, you're lying. And somehow, we're supposed to see him as representative of a new, harmonious kind of politics.

Today the New York Times weighs in with a piece parsing the language of the two separate "born alive" bills that Obama opposed in the Illinois state senate: The first, which NARAL did not oppose and which has a federal antecedent, would have defined as a "child" any fetus "born alive" during either a birth or abortion, making it a crime for doctors to withhold medical care from such babies, regardless of their eventual viability outside of the womb. The second bill would have allowed legal action against hospitals, doctors, and nurses that did not provide such care, and is the one pro-choice groups were more concerned about. They worried it would create a climate of fear in which practitioners would not perform abortions or complicated births because of the legal risks.

... Undoubtedly, NARAL made a smart political move when it decided not to oppose BAIPA; nobody wants to be painted as the cold-hearted group or individual who opposes life-saving interventions for babies. But if you're scratching your head about the intent of these bills -- wouldn't any doctor be compelled to save the life of any baby? are fetuses really "born alive" during abortions? -- you're not alone. It's worth going into some detail to clarify how BAIPA operates as a classic anti-choice strategy, distorting the very nature of abortion in order to horrify the public and erode support for choice.

In order for a fetus to be "born alive" during an abortion, that fetus would have to be removed from the womb relatively intact. But 90 percent of abortions are performed through aspiration (usually in the first 16 weeks of pregnancy), in which a surgical vacuum is used to empty out a woman's uterus. The vast majority of the remaining 10 percent of abortions consist of dilation and evacuation, which is usually performed after 16 weeks of pregnancy, often when a woman's health or life is at risk. Under that procedure, the aspiration process is sometimes preceded by an injection into the abdomen that ensures fetal demise.

The kind of abortion BAIPA really targets is so-called "partial birth abortion," or dilation and extraction, which accounts for less than one-fifth of one percent of all American abortions. It is used most often to end wanted pregnancies in which expectant parents learn their baby will not be viable outside of the womb. During the operation, the fetus' skull is collapsed inside of the woman, after which labor is induced and she delivers the fetus. Difficult stuff, and not a procedure any woman or doctor undergoes lightly or happily. That's why so few of these operations take place each year. But here the fetus is removed intact. Under BAIPA, this would open up doctors and nurses performing dilation and extraction to accusations of delivering "live" babies. It would be almost impossible to make such a claim when the result of an abortion is an aspirated mass of blood and tissue.

What is BAIPA? It's not a bill about babies at all -- doctors are already required to save babies' lives, and any ethical doctor would do so. BAIPA is a bill meant to reshape the language we use to talk about abortion and mislead the public about the possible outcomes of typical abortion procedures.

Maybe Obama thinks that any discussion of the details will only make it worse. Goldstein's explanation prompts follow-up questions. "So few"? But how many? "Any ethical doctor would do so"? But why can't we criminalize the behavior that is unethical? We don't say there should be no laws about murder because it's already unethical to commit murder. Now, I understand that the point is that hospital personnel don't want to have to live under the threat of criminal prosecution and that may be reason enough to vote against the law, but why can't Obama find a way to say it persuasively or at least well enough to fend off the uglier accusations?

Six days later, I got irked at him for the first time, for saying "You're not listening" to a man who wanted to know what his position on Iraq was. Back then, Kerry was saying things like "We shouldn't only be tough, we have to be smart. And there's a smarter way to accomplish this mission than this president is pursuing." My question was: "If you still don't know what he would do differently from Bush, do you deserve to be snapped at for 'not listening'?" I've linked back to this old post of mine a number of times, because I never forgot that he got testy and accused a man of not listening, when in fact Kerry had never expressed himself clearly about what he would do in Iraq. I had been willing to wait a long time for a clear answer, yet here he was criticizing us for not having heard his answer yet. All I had heard was "smarter way," which just seemed like a placekeeper for a plan to be submitted later.

Don't get mad at us for not already knowing the answers! Explain it. Even if you've explained it before. In Kerry's case, I felt that he was pretending he'd already explained it because he had no explanation or because if he said what he really thought, we'd object on the merits.

Come on, Obama. You've got a long way to go. And if you get elected, it's even longer. If you want to be President, abandon the dream of getting past our endless questioning and onto peaceful, happy harmony time.

Now, I understand that the point is that hospital personnel don't want to have to live under the threat of criminal prosecution

Welcome to the party pal. Noone in any line of work wants to live under the threat of criminal prosecution, but we do, usually because some assholes prior to us did the obviously wrong thing, such as tossing living humans in the trash.

It won't do to get pissed off and say that you've already explained this and we need to move on.

Hillary Clinton did it all the time. Except, instead of getting mad, she just would laugh and say that we should move on and discuss the important issues facing the nation; then she never discussed those issues.

This may have been the reason Obama voted the bill(s) down. The second bill would have allowed legal action against hospitals, doctors, and nurses that did not provide such care, and is the one pro-choice groups were more concerned about. They worried it would create a climate of fear in which practitioners would not perform abortions or complicated births because of the legal risks.

Aside from the opposition from NARAL, I would bet there was a lot of quiet, but furious opposition from the Illinois Medical Association and the AMA. It would create a real climate of fear in which practitioners could be held legally liable. The last thing these organizations want is more legal risk and liability. The doctors may have killed the bills because of the liability issues facing them. The AMA and the Illinois Medical Association are very large and very well organized special interest lobbying groups. Obama really cannot state publically that he caved into special interests, now can he?

If you have a million abortions a year, there has to be situations that occur where the doctor screws up and the baby is actually born alive (maybe the doctor didn't properly kill the baby in the womb). Statistically this is going to happen. So if it happens, what do you do about it. The key to the NY Times respose is that any "ethical" doctor would attempt to save the baby's life. Don't be so sure. What if the doctor doesn't beleive that a 22 month fetus is a baby?

Moreover, if there were no set rules, the doctor could get sued for letting the fetus live, because the procedure was supposed to be an abortion of a non person not a birth of a baby. Moreover, who pays for trying to take care of a 23 week non-person that wasn't wanted? Certainly the woman's insurance company could claim they won't pay for it and argue that its not a person. A doctor on the hook could be motivated to "finish the job."

This is why we need a clear law to tell people what to do. The ethics are unclear because people disagree on whether a 22 month fetus is a person. Thus, we can have a law telling people to care for the 22 month fetus, without defining the fetus as a person.

Gee Ann, you write an obsessive long post on Obama's rejection of an unnecessary law that is obviously a wedge to further restrict abortions--and the type of abortions that are almost always under tragic circumstances to abort non-viable fetuses--yet as someone who is supposedly pro-choice, you are apparently unconcerned with McCain's statement that life and human rights begin at conception. Cruel Neutrality? As your buddy Glenn Reynolds would say, heh Indeeed.

Under McCain's formulation, IUDs and the morning after pill would be illegal and it would mean the end of in-vitro treatments.

Impartial observer complains that "cruel neutrality" is not being observed because of a "crazed obsession" with O. But O is the guy people are trying to figure out; most don't have that problem with McC (we know where he is coming from, and can decide whether that's what we think is right for the country).

Ann's point about O's refusal to explain -- O's insistence that voters just accept his self-proclaimed judgment and bona fides and that any probing is "questioning my patriotism" or the like -- extends far beyond the abortion issue. O got to where he is on a wave of euphoria -- he's different! he represents Change and Hope! But euphoria never lasts, and O hasn't filled in the picture of himself. Is he the self-absorbed empty suit who would prefer to vote "present" on any controversial issue, as his critics contend? Is he just "doing what politicians do" as Rev. Wright explaned (if so, there goes Hope and Change!)? What really matters to him, where does he draw his line in the sand and what makes him draw it? Beats me.

Ann notes that O gets annoyed when people start probing for answers on specifics, like this abortion issue. But that's just a symptom of his larger problem, and explains why the Paris/Britney ad struck home for so many. His time is running out to convince people that he has a satisfactory answer. If his speech in the stadium next week is the same vacuous stuff that has been his standard spiel to date, delivered to an adoring crowd that would be happy if he were just reading the phone book, I think he's toast.

But O is the guy people are trying to figure out; most don't have that problem with McC (we know where he is coming from, and can decide whether that's what we think is right for the country).

Of course, Obama's problem is he can't fall back on "trust me, I was a POW" every time a question comes up that will result in a no-win answer.

On abortion, McCain has staked out an absolutely unsupportable position for the vast majority of the country--that life begins at conception. This is the position of the Catholic Church, and I doubt very few people would want to adopt the Catholic Church's stance on reproductive issues as the law of the land. Yet that is the logical result of his stance.

Ann said..."Don't get mad at us for not already knowing the answers! Explain it. Even if you've explained it before. In Kerry's case, I felt that he was pretending he'd already explained it because he had no explanation or because if he said what he really thought, we'd object on the merits.

You know what the difference is between Kerry's case, as you well-describe it, and Obama's?

This is bad news for Obama. The only sound bites are all against him. Can anyone think of a short memorable comeback for him? I suspect that in American politics if your vote requires an explanation longer than 15 seconds you're toast. "I wanted to protect the doctors" won't fly because it conjures up the image of a doctor versus a baby. What's left for Obama to say?

So the Obama-Goldstein defense is that the law is unnecessary because it's inconceivable that abortionists would be willing to deny care to the infants they were hired to kill? Yeah, that should convince everyone but the lying liars at the Catholic News Agency.

I lack the purity of many posters here. I think dipping a person in a vat of acid is a criminal act of torture in a way that water boarding is not. Likewise there is a difference between an abortion in the first trimester and an abortion when the labor pains are ten minutes apart. I recognize that this position has many logical contradictions, but life is not a philosophy exam. Democracies muddle through; idealogues climb the mountain.....I am closer to Obama than to McCain on this issue, but Obama's unwillingness to acknowledge that he is on a slippery slope rather than a moral summit is troubling.

Ann & co. remind me of the scene in "Mandingo" where the mandingo is in the middle of the town square being auctioned off and the german woman comes up and puts her hand down the front of Mandingo's briefs to check out the size of his penis. They are all circling around the black guy to deem whether he is worthy to be their slave.

Not once has Ann applied this type of scrutiny to any white politician.

This woman who voted for George Bush, a man who has dstroyed virtually everything he has put his friggin' hands on. Not one bit of scrutiny. No calls for jailing virtually everyone in his administration.

The white politicians can do or say anything without one bit of outrage or scrutiny by this woman.

This is called racism, and it is despicable. I'm gonna call you what you are lady. A racist!

"I wanted to protect the doctors" would work if Obama presented the conflict as between doctors and lawyers. He could even co-opt the republican anti-lawsuit message. Hell, he could even mention John Edwards by name as the type of ambulance chaser that shouldn't be allowed to use a poorly-written bill as fodder for malpractice suits.

most don't have that problem with McC (we know where he is coming from, and can decide whether that's what we think is right for the country).

I would disagree - I don't know where McC is coming from. On a lot of fronts he’s not coming from the same places he came from in 2000. Is it really him, or just a brilliant disguise?

This is bad news for Obama. The only sound bites are all against him. Can anyone think of a short memorable comeback for him? I suspect that in American politics if your vote requires an explanation longer than 15 seconds you're toast.

So much for the attention span of the average American - it says more about us that it does the candidate.

"integrity" throws the R bomb--a somewhat tortured rationale for it, but there it is.

Freder mentioned McCain's POW status--I don't recall McCain ever saying trust me I was a POW--Now I will grant that the American public has this fixation on POWs, and Mccain benefits from that. Thats the way it is, deal with it. But Freder: please point me to an instance where McCain has lapsed into his POW status to avoid taking a position. I can't recall any and I am too lazy to google it, but you seem to be aware of some.

Stimulating political foreplay is well and good, but at some point much of the electorate will grow tired of the ceaseless rosy platitudes and begin to focus on substance, or the absence thereof.

Obama is failing. He's just another Chicago pol, in some respects maybe worse than most, and there aren't any counterbalancing positives. Simply claiming "I am new and wonderful and different, and hope and change." has worn thin to the point of transparency. Behind it is only the ugly truth, which is becoming more obvious every day. Even the protective media facade is beginning to crack.

It's over, boys and girls. Obama has nowhere to run, and nowhere to go but down. Oh, and there is no Santa Claus, the Easter bunny is a furry little fake and the handsome prince won't be showing up in a golden chariot to whisk you away from harsh reality. It's time to grow up now.

I am pro-life but also support Obama. I still can't figure out though why democrats are so afraid of the abortion issue when they run for president - especially since the majority is pro-choice with restrictions. I remember in 2004 during a Bush/Kerry debate when the question was something like "Should the federal government pay for abortions?" Bush's answer: "No." Kerry's answer: a rambling non-responsive 15 second narrative. Similarly at the Saddleback shindig, McCain says "Life begins at conception" and Obama say "Theologians, scholars, blah blah above my paygrade." How about: "I don't know when it starts." or "At birth."

There is a difference between being nuanced and being non-committal. People don't mind the former but get suspicious when you look like the latter.

"Now, I understand that the point is that hospital personnel don't want to have to live under the threat of criminal prosecution"

Welcome to the party pal. Noone in any line of work wants to live under the threat of criminal prosecution, but we do,

No Shit!! Try being a stockbroker under constant threat of arbitration. Insurance agent. General Contractor. Accountants and CPA. DOCTORS. You name it we can be sued.

Of course the answer is to operate legally and ethically and 99.9% do. However, this doesn't stop laws from being enacted that criminalize wrong behavior in all of these occupations. Why should special laws be enacted that exempt abortion procedures and abortion practitioners?

Here's how I understand what the controversy is all about: A nurse working at a suburban Chicago hospital observed a late-term abortion being performed. The procedure was to induce delivery. The assumption was, given the development of the fetus, the delivery would result in a "still born" child/fetus. The fetus was a little more developed than assumed and the child/fetus was not still born; it was alive. It tried to breathe. It struggled and writhed. It was placed in a utility closet and allowed to die.

The nurse, went to the hospital administration. The administration refused to do anything about the practice. (Between 10% - 15% of late-term abortions of this type result in a "live" birth.) The nurse went to the Il Attorney General who investigated as said that no laws were broken, so he could not get involved. The nurse went to the state legislature, which where then State Senator Obama comes into the picture.

At about the same time, Congress got involved. Congress first considered a bill that would "clarify" that any "child" that showed signs of life and was entirely outside its mother was a "person" and had legal rights. Some objected that the bill, as worded, might give some credence to the notion that an unborn fetus might also have legal rights. A "neutrality clause" was added to the address this question and the bill passed without a single nay vote in either house of Congress.

In Illinois, the same things happened in the same order, but with a different end result. A bill was introduced. Some objected that the bill could be used to restrict abortion rights. A neutrality clause was added. Obama, who was chair of the committee overseeing the bill, killed the bill.

Since then, he's offered 4 different explanations for his actions. None of those explanations hold water. Some contradict the others. His first explanation was that the state bill differed from the federal law because it lacked a neutrality clause. We now know that the bill he killed in committee had the neutrality clause and was virtually identical with the federal law. (The sponsor of the bill had copied it from the federal legislation.) His most recent explanation is that, yes, the two bills were virtually identical, but that the effects would have been different. State law is where abortion is regulated, so the federal law would not affect abortion while the state law -- with the same wording -- would affect abortion.

Obama's last explanation might be accurate, but it does not explain his shifting story. If the state law would have restricted abortion, he should say how that might have happened. Also, he's tried to claim that he was just as concerned about the plight of these "born alive abortion survivors" as anyone else -- he would have supported the federal law, etc. If that's the case, why didn't he try to draft around his concerns with the Illinois version of the law? He was the committee chair and could have done so if he really did care.

"P.S. John McCain more or less let you folks know yesterday that he agrees on a draft for continued military actions. Wrong again geniuses."

Well as you know his handlers and surrogates told us McCain doesn't necessarily speak for his campaign. When McCain says "he doesn't disagree with you" about implementing a draft, that can mean anything after the fact. Which in this case means, "no I disagree with you on implementing a draft". Or something.

The Corner is doing tremendous work on this subject. You can start at the top and keep scrolling, or you can do a "find on this page" of "babies" or "infant" and skip from post to post.

One of Obama's defenses is that the law was unnecessary, but that wasn't true. From the post linked, by David Freddoso:The answer is that no law was protecting them. We know this for certain because the Illinois attorney general at the time, Jim Ryan — the man charged with enforcing state laws — wrote a letter on July 17, 2000, expressing his finding that Christ Hospital was breaking no laws in leaving premature babies to die after they survived abortions.

Dana Goldstein wrote: The kind of abortion BAIPA really targets is so-called "partial birth abortion," or dilation and extraction, which accounts for less than one-fifth of one percent of all American abortions.

For the year 2002 the CDC reported that there were ~854,000 abortions in 49 "reporting areas". Taking Goldstein's less than one-fifth of one percent as accurate, as well as his contention that BAIPA only targets those kinds of abortions, then somewhere between 850 to 1700 abortions in 2002 would have been subject to this kind of law.

I would assume that number would be fairly steady year-to-year, although some years will see sharp increases or decreases. Also, we should assume that most of these abortions would actually be performed without any problems, so no live birth would result. Assume a 20% failure rate (and that is a very high assumption I would think) and one would have at most 340 cases a years in the US where such laws might apply. And if most doctors do in fact use any and all means to save the life of such a person then that reduces that number by more than half.

In other words, there might be as many as 169 such cases in a year, assuming the worst.

If the numbers cited by the CDC and Goldstein are correct then I think one could make a nice argument against voting for such a law on this ground: It is such a rare occurance that the situation shouldn't be subjected to such legal scrutiny. I see no reason to clutter up the law books, the courts and the police agencies looking for what is literally a 1 in millions case.

It is such a rare occurance that the situation shouldn't be subjected to such legal scrutiny. I see no reason to clutter up the law books, the courts and the police agencies looking for what is literally a 1 in millions case.

Interesting. Why then aren't those arguments made by people like Obama when they address the rights of prisoners at Guantanamo? Out of the millions of potential terrorists, why spend time on a few hundred. It seems de minimus.

Goldstein also wrote: Undoubtedly, NARAL made a smart political move when it decided not to oppose BAIPA; nobody wants to be painted as the cold-hearted group or individual who opposes life-saving interventions for babies.

I have another follow-up for Goldstein. NARAL has been known to take some rather firm stances on the abortion issue. If THEY thought supporting the bill (or at least not opposing it) was the politically smart thing to do and that it wouldn't create undojeopardy for abortion providers, then doesn't that mean that Obama's opposition to the bill wasn't smart?

In other words, wasn't Obama an idiot to oppose this bill? And having done so isn't he a further idiot to call other people liars when they point out what he did then? Obama is by comparison making Bush look smarter every day. That's no mean feat, but I'm not sure it's the premise he wants to pin his Presidential aspirations on.

These liars, including Republican thought leaders, are accusing him of being in favor of infanticide. It's a vile and false accusation. The anger is an essential part of the communication.

Alpha, I know you don't have time to read the entire post, but once you've fully acquainted yourself with Obama's actions, they come pretty close to allowing what most observers would think of as infanticide to remain legal in Illinois. Now permitting an action is NOT the same as favoring the action, but most people don't appreciate such nuance in this context without a lot of explanation.

So far, Obama's just been unwilling to offer such an explanation. Instead, he's offered false stories. (His claim that he'd have supported a bill in Illinois if it had had the federal neutrality language in it is false. He voted against such a bill.) Or, he's offered less than a full explanation for his actions. (His most recent story is that the Illinois bill that he killed, while virtually the same as the federal bill he claims to have supported, would have somehow been bad. He's not explained how the bill would have been bad.)

When most people hear the nurse's description of what happened to the "babies" born alive, they think such infants warrant care. They want to know why someone would simply allow them to die and why Obama would think such callus disregard for human life should remain legal. Obama might have a good explanation for his position. It might even be the right position. So far, other than call his critics liars, he's not had much of a response.

Sloanasaurus asked: Why then aren't those arguments made by people like Obama when they address the rights of prisoners at Guantanamo? Out of the millions of potential terrorists, why spend time on a few hundred. It seems de minimus.

Personally I don't care about the rights of the prsioners at Guantanimo. (But then I am known to be a bastard about such things.) But there is a justification for looking at the one case and not the other: The prisoners at Guantanimo are concentrated together and we know exactly where to look for them. It isn't a needle in a haystack situation - instead it's a collection of needles in a small drawer in the kitchen. We know exactly where they are, how many there are, and so does everybody else. If all of the abortions to be covered by the BAIPA laws were so easy to find it could be reasonably argued that such a law would be useful. But these abortions will be spread out in time and place, the people involved will change substantially from procedure to procedure, and policing them all would require a HUMONGOUS investment in resources.

integrity said... This woman who voted for George Bush, a man who has dstroyed virtually everything he has put his friggin' hands on. Not one bit of scrutiny. No calls for jailing virtually everyone in his administration.

Oh, please give it up. No one is going to jail because no crimes have been committed. The last president to commit a real crime- perjury, not only wasn’t impeached, he was not even indicted. He went on to fame, wealth, and glory; a real jet setter making tens of millions of dollars. Remember him? Bill Clinton.

Your definition of racism is very similar to the far, far left wacko definition of racism; anyone who does not agree with us is racist.

"David Walser" is perpetuating the same untruth as NRL's Douglas Johnson. The "neutrality clause" is a red herring. I will repeat my comment, to give "David" another chance to read and react to it.

David: Some objected that the bill, as worded, might give some credence to the notion that an unborn fetus might also have legal rights. A "neutrality clause" was added to the address this question and the bill passed without a single nay vote in either house of Congress.

David Walser/Douglas Johnson told an untruth here. The 2005 Illinois bill, but not the 2003 or earlier bills, contained these clauses protecting mother and doctor:

(d) Nothing in this Section shall be construed to affect existing federal or State law regarding abortion.(e) Nothing in this Section shall be construed to alter generally accepted medical standards.

The federal BAIPA contained (d) as well.

You can see for yourself on the Illinois General Assembly website.

Consider this: Jill Stanek claimed horrors involving newborn babies went on at a hospital named after our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Does anyone else find this implausible? Christ Hospital is operated by Advocate Health Care. Advocate Health Care believes human beings are created in the image of God. Here is the relevant excerpt from Advocate's "About Us" webpage:

Related to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United Church of Christ, Advocate's health and healing ministry began over one hundred years ago. A faith-based mission of caring has been the foundation of our heritage for over one hundred years.

Mission"The mission of Advocate Health Care is to serve the health needs of individuals, families and communities through a wholistic philosophy rooted in our fundamental understanding of human beings as created in the image of God."

I just realized something - if Obama was the chairman of the committee where this bill originated couldn't he have had the neutrality language inserted into the bill? If that was his sole objection to the bill then shouldn'the have insisted on the language being inserted to the bill? In this light his stated positions make no sense.

Former Law Student writes: "David Walser" is perpetuating the same untruth as NRL's Douglas Johnson. The "neutrality clause" is a red herring. I will repeat my comment, to give "David" another chance to read and react to it.

Thank you for the opportunity to retract. (No need for the quotes around my name. It's my real name. One I share with a handful of others in the USA. Most of whom, no doubt, wish I'd post under an assumed name.) I won't be taking you up on this privilege, however. Seems the Washington Post has lept to the same confusion I did. Here's from the Post's 8/20/08 article, Candidates' Abortion Views Not So Simple, by Jonathan Weisman:

As a committee chairman in the state Senate in 2003, Obama supported GOP efforts to add language to the act, copied from federal legislation, clarifying that it would have no legal impact on the availability of abortions. Obama then opposed the bill's final passage. Since then, he has said he would have backed the bill as it was written and approved almost unanimously the year before.

...

Obama aides acknowledged yesterday that the wording of the state and federal bills was virtually identical. But, they added, the impact of a state law is different, because detailed abortion procedures and regulations are governed by states. Johnson and others are oversimplifying the situation, aides said. (Emphasis added.)

Again, Obama's explanation keeps changing. You're working with a prior version. Care to retract? His own staff has backed away from his original explanation (see above).

BTW, Obama's committee's records show the bill he killed contained the neutrality clause. (I couldn't find the link, but I didn't look too hard.) Even if the 2003 bill did not have the neutrality clause, nothing prevented Obama from inserting it. He was the committee chair!

Now I'm confused. Is this quote from the WaPo still considered accurate, David?

As a committee chairman in the state Senate in 2003, Obama supported GOP efforts to add language to the act, copied from federal legislation, clarifying that it would have no legal impact on the availability of abortions. Obama then opposed the bill's final passage. Since then, he has said he would have backed the bill as it was written and approved almost unanimously the year before.

Obama supported GOP efforts to add language to the act, copied from federal legislation, clarifying that it would have no legal impact on the availability of abortions. Obama then opposed the bill's final passage.

Then you'll be able to find the text of the bill as amended. I couldn't find it on the ilga website, however.

I'm unsurprised that Obama may misremember the different states of the various bills. I do not have at my fingertips all the details of matters I looked at five years ago.

You're asking him to campaign like Dukakis. Remember how Dukakis reacted coldly when asked a hypothetical about his wife being raped?

Dukakis' problem was that he said he wouldn't even want a death penalty for a man who raped and murdered his wife. A normal man with normal emotions would quite naturally want the murderer executed. What Dukakis should have done was to say that while of course he would want that punishment, it would still be a bad idea to allow it for [insert list of reasons]. That would have established that he had normal human emotions, but wasn't at the mercy of them. Instead he came off sounding like his own wife's death wouldn't even affect his decision-making ability.

Dukakis' response was all policy and no emotion. Obama is all emotion and no policy. Neither approach resonates with voters for very long. Voters want to see some anger and outrage, but they want to see it backed up by a real explanation, too.

Isn't it interesting that the local posters whining that Obama is being called "pro-infanticide" for voting against a bill that banned a form of infanticide are among those calling McCain "pro-torture" for voting against a bill that banned waterboarding?

Both groups -- those who call Obama "pro-infanticide" and those who call McCain "pro-torture" -- would benefit from a less simplistic understanding of how legislatures work.

Don't leave us stranded here? A view on this would be helpful to where you see this????

Are you really pro-choice? Or would you prefer that it be overturned? You seem to applaud the conservative judges on the supreme court so are you interested in getting a few more on the supreme court to have it overturned? Maybe another Scalia or Thomas and it will be overturned. How would that make you feel?

Those are not opposed positions. A person can be pro-choice and still recognize that Roe vs. Wade was wrongly decided. All it takes is the understanding that "it is good and right that X is legal" does not imply "the Constitution forbids making X illegal". The Constitution is a fine document, but it neither mandates all good ideas nor forbids all bad ones.

Is Knox short for Knoxville, as in Tennessee? Lovely. Next time I book by fabulous trip I will think about Knoxville and Gatlinberg and Dollywood. I heard you can see 7 states from Lookout Mountain. My life will be complete if I can see 7 southern redneck states.

No, what Dukakis should have done is called the moderator (or whoever asked the question) an ass for posing such a hypothetical.

That would have implied that he didn't have a good argument for opposing the death penalty. It would also have played into the stereotype that a liberal is just a conservative who hasn't been mugged yet -- that Dukakis was soft on crime because he didn't see crime as happening to a rich white guy like himself.

Opposition to the death penalty is a politically unpopular position. The fear of family members being victimized by criminals is very real to most Americans. You can't just sneer your way out of explaining why we shouldn't execute criminals; you've got to explain WHY we shouldn't.

Original Mike wrote: Now I'm confused. Is this quote from the WaPo still considered accurate, David?

I don't know. I do know some of Obama's critics claim to have documentary evidence that the bill Obama killed in committee was virtually identical to the federal law. I did not follow the link to look at the evidence myself.

To respond to Former Law Student's comment that, if the bill had been amended to have the neutrality language it should be available on the Illinois legislature's website, I'm not familiar enough with Illinois procedures to explain the amended bill's apparent absence. FLS says he/she looked for the bill on the website and came up empty. Would a bill be available on the website if it was never reported out of committee? Would the committee's proceedings be found in a different location, such that FLS's search came up empty because the search was of the wrong database? Don't know.

What I do know is that Obama's explanation has changed. His most recent (as of the Washington Post article) is that he did oppose an Illinois version of the federal law -- not because it was dissimilar from the federal law (which he still supports), but because of differences in the underlying state v. federal laws. He may have a new explanation by now.

That would have implied that he didn't have a good argument for opposing the death penalty.

No it would have implied that Dukakis didn't take kindly to a questioner trying to emotionally manipulate him (and the audience) like that. The question was an attempt at a cheap "gotcha" and unfortunately it succeeded. I say that as someone who voted against Dukakis in 1988 and who supports the death penalty. But it was a horrible question by any measure and I wish Dukakis had handled it better if only to have cut down on that kind of cheap stupidity in the future.

No it would have implied that Dukakis didn't take kindly to a questioner trying to emotionally manipulate him (and the audience) like that.

Nobody is interested in seeing a would-be President throw a temper tantrum. You can't escape a subject people have strong emotions about by whining about "emotional manipulation". It just ends up looking like what it is: evading the question. Two-thirds of Americans support the death penalty for murderers. If a politician doesn't, he needs to say why. Dukakis either couldn't or didn't. His response didn't even address the death penalty, in fact. He just switched the topic to how he had supposedly lowered crime rates in Massachusetts.

The question was an attempt at a cheap "gotcha"

It is no more of a "cheap gotcha" than asking a politician who opposes national health care what he would do if his child needed medical care he couldn't afford, or asking a pro-life politician what he would do if his daughter became pregnant, or asking a pro-war politician why he didn't join the military. The questions are legitimate. These are the people who make the laws; we deserve to know how they see those laws in relation to themselves.

Outis - "Assume a 20% failure rate (and that is a very high assumption I would think) and one would have at most 340 cases a years in the US where such laws might apply. And if most doctors do in fact use any and all means to save the life of such a person then that reduces that number by more than half.

In other words, there might be as many as 169 such cases in a year, assuming the worst.

If the numbers cited by the CDC and Goldstein are correct then I think one could make a nice argument against voting for such a law on this ground: It is such a rare occurance that the situation shouldn't be subjected to such legal scrutiny."

Bad legal reasoning. What we consider some of the most heinous, most impactful crimes are fortunately rare, involving less than 169 instances a year. That does not mean that the low instances make the crime so insignificant to society that it isn't worth the time and effort to have laws that punish such perps.

Instead, we seek to have statutes on the books that target those rare, but heinous crimes.

*Treason.*Terrorist conspiracy.*Kidnapping and killing a child.*A Wall Street financier that bilks 100s of millions from investors.*Organized poachers killing off masses of US rare, endangered wildlife for the China Market.*Cops caught railroading a citizen.*People caught with illegal machine guns.

It is such a rare occurance that the situation shouldn't be subjected to such legal scrutiny."

The relevant question isn't "how often does it happen", but "how often should it be allowed". If the answer to the second question is "never", the activity should be against the law -- even if it almost never actually happens. That is why, for example, it is illegal to kidnap children for ransom in the United States, even though it hardly ever happens anymore.

I'm pro death penalty, at least in certain circumstances, but I know how Dukakis should have answered that question:

<turn toward questioner and stare daggers at him> If someone even tried to do that to Kitty, I'd want him dead. <relax gaze> That's why I wouldn't be allowed to serve on the jury trying him; we recognize that emotional responses can affect the judgement of people that are too close to a situation to make the best decisions.

Day 5 of Obama's refusal to release the Annenberg documents. He has misrepresented his abortion bill record here, when almost all the activities were public, so why should I trust him that there's nothing in them there files?

Jesse, give back his balls!Obama's tesosterone deficiency is clearly affecting his thinking.

Outis said...if Obama was the chairman of the committee where this bill originated couldn't he have had the neutrality language inserted into the bill?

Original Mike said...Good point, Outis. And to make matters worse, apparently the federal law including the language was already available as a template.

Okay, I made it through this entire excellent post and comment thread and these strike me as the two most salient questions. Obama was chairman of the committee and didn't have the leadership capabilities to re-form the language of the bill and now he wants us to elect him to the highest pay grade in government?

Mr. Obama, Thank you for applying for the job. Your interview was exceptional. We'll keep your application on file. But we're not going to lie to you. We HAVE in fact been listening: You are not yet qualified for the position that you seek.

Meade said...Obama was chairman of the committee and didn't have the leadership capabilities to re-form the language of the bill and now he wants us to elect him to the highest pay grade in government?

Meade makes a HUGE point here. Obama was the chairman of this committee. He now claims that he has both the track record and the ability to reach across the aisle and get things done by working with people of differing viewpoints. Instead of voting to add a neutrality clause to the bill, then voting the bill down in committee, Why wsn't he able to craft a bill that would bridge the divide????

Bottom line, he wanted no bill to pass that would restrict abortion in any fashion. Note: The Federal bill passed by something like 98-0 and 430-0. this deal could have been had in his state if only Obama had lifted a finger. It passed once he left the State House.

"These liars, including Republican thought leaders, are accusing him of being in favor of infanticide. It's a vile and false accusation. The anger is an essential part of the communication."

I would never say that Obama favors infanticide, he's just sort of neutrel on the topic and opposes outlawing it. Totally different.

I would assume his approach to Bin Laden would be the same - not a supporter, but not really in favor of doing anything about Al Queda either. After all, who are we to judge, when America is such an awful place that His wife could never really feel proud of it until her hubby became a presidential candidate.

roy, the operators of Christ Hospital, Advocate Health Care, have roots in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as well as the United Church of Christ. Obama's former church is a United Church of Christ, but the congregation does not own Christ Hospital.

1. Nurse Jill Stanek testified that the aborted infant she found in a dirty linen closet lived for **45 minutes**.

For a preemie outside of any and all medical care and with no access to oxygen or an incubator, that's rather a lot of viability.

2. The Chicago hospital where Nurse Jill Stanek worked at, and found the aborted child, reported in 2001 that the average number of such "born alive" infants were as high as "10% to 20%".

3. Why would BAIPA apply to partial birth abortion? It only applies to infants that are *fully* born while partial birth abortion relies on only, as the name implies, partially delivering the infant before killing.

4. If these infants were in fact non-viable then would someone kindly explain why the SOP for these infants was to shove them into a closet, to die of suffocation from underdeveloped lungs, rather than humanely applying euthanasia?

Isn't there a legal term for that kind of conduct? Knowledge of criminality or some such where a person acts as if a crime was committed?

If the infant truly was non-viable then a lethal dose would make the infant's agony go away. But of course if the doctors actually believe the infants were viable then doing so is murder.

Goldstein posits that BAIPA would affect "partial birth abortions" while the actual text of the BAIPA that Obama killed reads:

(b) As used in this Section, the term "born alive", with respect to a member of the species homo sapiens, means the complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of that member, at any stage of development, who after that expulsion or extraction breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion.

I went looking for an accurate explanation of Obama's position on the Born Alive law. There's nothing on abortion on the much-touted "Fight the Smears" page of his website. Starting at the front page, I find the "issues" drop-down menu and go to "Women for Obama Issues" to find his material on abortion. There is a brief note of his support for abortion rights. The only outreach to abortion opponents is the line: "Barack Obama understands that abortion is a divisive issue, and respects those who disagree with him."

Here is a link that has been on the Obama site since August 19th:http://factcheck.barackobama.com/factcheck/2008/08/19/fact_check_born_alive_1.php

"I went looking for an accurate explanation of Obama's position on the Born Alive law. There's nothing on abortion on the much-touted "Fight the Smears" page of his website. Starting at the front page, I find the "issues" drop-down menu and go to "Women for Obama Issues" to find his material on abortion. There is a brief note of his support for abortion rights. The only outreach to abortion opponents is the line: "Barack Obama understands that abortion is a divisive issue, and respects those who disagree with him."

Here is a link that has been on the Obama site since August 19th:http://factcheck.barackobama.com/factcheck/2008/08/19/fact_check_born_alive_1.php